Daisy Blue

Let me start by saying, I'm so glad these daisies didn't wilt. The time it took me to make this quilt was so long, it was embarrassing.

Last June my god daughter graduated from high school. I knew I wanted to make her a quilt, but my experience and expertise in quiltmaking lacked. I found the pattern and asked her mom for favorite colors and flowers and Daisy Blue was born.

I knew I didn't want to do anything with small pieces of fabric. I like larger, bold shapes with vibrant colors and patterns. The design I found on Pinterest was originally made from layer cake pieces.
http://www.polkadotchair.com/2010/03/tuesday-tutorial-snuggly-layer-cake-quilt-a-march-bag-giveaway.html/  There's a diagram on this site of how to piece each section together.

I decided to hunt for the daisy and blue fabric and make my own squares. The light blue dots and daisies are from Fabric.com by designer Kaffe Fassett.

 

Here was my first stumbling block. I think a big reason why I didn't quilt more is because I don't have a very large space to work on. I hate working from the floor, but at this time, that was all there was. I read somewhere (probably on Pinterest) painters tape works well on securing the back to a carpet. I seemed to do it's job for this one. 

Everything is laid out and pinned. It was carefully rolled up and set aside. By this time I had missed the deadline of graduation. I had great intentions of getting it done by the end of summer and delivered before Emma went to college.  Then there was end of summer vacation, school starting, holidays, and this and that  and the quilt wasn't going anywhere.

In Feb. I was asked if I wanted to take a quilt class at Shirley's Stoney Creek on Saturday afternoons. This was it! The time I would have to get this baby done. Each Saturday for 3 hours I learned a great deal and this quilt was on it's way to being complete. Shirley, if you see this, Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your knowledge and space.

Shirley tried to talk me into hand binding my quilts and did a few of her customers who came in. Seriously? If I did that, I would never make another. 

 She did suggest I use one of the decorative stitches to finish the binding if I was going to machine quilt it.  It was a great idea and looked really nice.

 Almost finished and it's near the end of March.

 

I had yet to create a quilt label. I would have liked to make a nice embroidered label, but lets just say I hope to learn to make those by the end of summer. 

I decided to peruse Pinterest again to find out how to transfer photos onto fabric. Of course it didn't take me long. I made a design in MS Word, printed it on Transfer Artist's paper which I bought on Amazon. 

 

I then ironed it on fabric and sewed the label on the back of the quilt.   

Below are just some additional photos of the finished quilt. 

   

I had some leftover fabric so I decided to make a mug rug to go along with the quilt.  I love these mini quilts. It's a great way to use up left over scraps. 

The quilt was mailed about two weeks ago. I hope she enjoys it and gets lots of use from it on those frigid days in fall and winter in upstate New York.

Lessons Learned:

1. Start quilts early enough so you can finish them on time.

This this was one of first quilts I've made, I can't really say there were many mistakes because the whole process was learning how to quilt and bind. I do know there will be some things I will do differently next time.

Have you ever had an experience of not getting a gift done on time?  Tell me about your story in a comment.

Thanks for visiting One Twenty Seven.

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